


Howling at the Moon

by BelladonnaLee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Animagus, Creature Fic, Don't copy to another site, Forests, Infidelity, M/M, Sexual Content, The Beast Within, Two Minds One Body, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:02:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29598033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelladonnaLee/pseuds/BelladonnaLee
Summary: He is lost in the forest of antlers, lost in his prey and lover's antlers on this full moon night.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/James Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: My Bloody Valentine 2021





	Howling at the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters are not mine.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of cannibalism but nothing really happens, dark imagery and theme
> 
> A/N: This is something of an experiment. The title comes from Sakutarou Hagiwara's poetry collection, _Tsuki ni Hoeru_.

When he opened his eyes, he saw a forest of antlers. The moon glowed full and bright in the night sky and in the darkness of his heart, painting shadows upon the snow and tinting his heart in shades of blue. Night had fallen around him, over him, inside him. The human inside his stomach sighed and closed his eyes and sank into a deep slumber. No matter how hard the human fought with him, the human always succumbed to his love and lust in the end.

Yes, this was _his_ time. Time to play, time to hunt, time to eat.

The smell of winter and snow tickled his nose, but soon a different scent flitted towards him and took hold of his senses. It was a warm-blooded, delicious smell, enticing and inviting and promising sweet, bloody delight. Like a phantom tongue it caressed his instinct and his hunger, lick by exquisite lick.

The scent swirled inside his head and took on an elegant, familiar shape: a thin face, a graceful gallop, long, slender legs, and a pair of glorious antlers that could maim and gore him to death. The stag of his dream and desire was delicate and dangerous and beautiful. He did not mind pain or death; it was one of the few things he and his human agreed on.

He opened his mouth and let his tongue hang out, drool dripping to the snow-covered ground and hot breath misting in the chilly air. He breathed in the delectable smell and let it soak through his pores, his mind, his heart, an appetizer for what was to come. The human inside his stomach stirred and frowned, and with a hush and an affectionate stroke he willed his human to go back to sleep.

The sound of hoofs trampling snow underfoot was approaching ever closer, accompanied by the faintest of breathing. He could all but taste the warm blood and warm flesh in the air; he could all but taste the tender meat in his mouth. (He could all but feel James touching him, moving inside him, shagging him.) He threw his head back and howled, alerting his prey and lover of his whereabouts.

Before long his prey and lover came to him, a magnificent stag coming to hunt him down in the forest of antlers. In the blue moonlight, the stag's fur was dark as blood, and those liquid hazel eyes of his were fixed upon him, peering at him and peering at the human inside him. The stag knew; he always knew.

He was panting and salivating, his hunger becoming the beast that was himself. (He was panting and painfully aroused, his lust transforming into a beast that was eating away at him, bite by tantalising bite.) He wanted to sink his teeth into the stag; all it took was a bite and the stag would be his and his alone. (James could not be his alone, that he already knew, and he tried to satisfy himself with having James in his bed or anywhere that James would have him.)

I love you, and I want to eat you.

(Maybe I'm in love with you, and I want to make love to you.)

He was lost in the forest of antlers, lost in his prey and lover's antlers on this full moon night, and all that he had left was instinct and hunger and lust and loneliness and a need to be filled with something, anything. When the stag sauntered towards him in the moonlit snow—as if in invitation, as if in solace, as if in surrender—he howled and ran and leapt and went for the stag's throat.

* * * * * * *

When he opened his eyes, he saw a pair of hazel eyes looking at him, and a smile played upon a certain someone's lips. Blue twilight crept in through the window, tinting the familiar-looking room and that certain someone's skin with its colour. He was naked under the blanket, and he could feel that certain someone's warm, naked body rubbing ever so slowly against his body as though in affection.

"Good evening, Remus," James said in a playful tone. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," Remus mumbled, his voice sounding hoarse to his ear. Last night was the full moon, and he had only slept a wink before pangs of hunger took hold of him. After some lunch, James dragged him off to his room and into bed, where they stayed for the rest of the afternoon, having sex and making pillow talks, even though James already had a girlfriend in Lily. He should break it off with James, he knew, and yet...

"You were more eager than usual," James teased. "You are always more—open? unrepressed?—immediately after the full moon, but this time even more so." He paused, as if searching for words in the dark, and somehow Remus had an inkling what that word was: desperation. "You haven't stayed at my house for some time. Do you miss me?"

"I do." Remus did not miss the look of surprise on James' face. A heartbeat later, it was replaced by a flicker of tenderness in James' expression and a genuine smile on James' lips. Remus felt a pang in his chest, as if he had just told a lie. " _And I was hungry,_ " someone said in his voice, and he did not know who it was.

"Do I smell delicious to you?" James asked in jest, but those hazel eyes of his were fixed upon Remus, stripping him bare and peeling his human skin apart to stare at the wolf that was slumbering in the shadow of his heart.

"Yes," the wolf within and the human without replied in unison, and for one unsettling moment, he forgot who he was or where he was. Was he a wizard or a wolf or a combination of both? Was he reclining in the comfort of James' bed once upon a winter evening, or was he roaming in the forest in the dead of night, looking for a pair of antlers in the snow?

A lopsided grin appearing upon his lips, James reached out and touched a strand of Remus' hair, his touch gentle and light. "Do you want to eat me?"

 _Yes,_ the wolf growled, and for a heartbeat or two, the wolf's hunger became Remus' hunger. His mouth salivating, he craved terribly for a taste of James, for a bite out of James. In the next heartbeat, he swallowed and pressed his lips together, refusing to let the wolf hold sway. "This is hardly one of your better jokes."

"Sorry," James said without sincerity, his hand finding Remus' hand under the blanket. "When I die, I want you to eat me. All of me that you can eat. All the bones you can gnaw at. All the blood you can drink. I'll give you my cock and my heart."

A thrill trickled down Remus' back, and he shot James a sidelong glance. It was not the first time James had said something of the like to him, but there was an undercurrent in James' voice he had never heard before. "I'm more likely to die before you do," he said wryly, all the while trying to stifle the tingle of unease inside him.

There was a flicker in James' eyes, and a pained look came over him for a moment and was soon gone. "Then I'll eat you instead," James joked, and the spell was broken. "And you'll be mine."

"You might turn into a werewolf like me."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps I'll be able to understand you better." And with that James leant over and caught Remus' lips in a kiss. Coiling his arms around his lover and prey, Remus returned the kiss and took care not to bite James. "One more time before dinner?" James murmured. Without a word Remus silenced James with his mouth and rolled on top of him, and that was all the answer that was needed between them.

The bed creaked as Remus rode James in the haze of the blue twilight, their voices blending into a strange cacophony. Holding James' hand to his mouth, Remus licked and sucked and grazed his teeth lightly against each one of James' fingers. It was a tasting. Yes, just a taste and nothing more. A bite was all it would take, he knew.

His expression twisted into one of pleasure or pain or both, James talked dirty to him and stroked him in the way that he liked. (That they both liked.) With veiled eyes he gazed at the man he loved and hungered for and lusted after, the man who was willing to embrace the wolf in his heart (and the human in his stomach), the man who was in a way eating him and being eaten by him. He was happy, so happy he could cry.

I love you. (I love you.)

In the blue of the midnight snow, he would sink his sharp teeth into the stag's flesh, tearing him apart strip by strip, and he would chew slowly, ceremoniously, lovingly, for every bite was sacred and important. Every bite he took into himself was another bite of his prey and lover lost to him forever. And he would cry in happiness and in grief as he swallowed the last bite.

In the cover of night, he would slice open his lover and prey and peel back the human flesh with a well-practised spell, and with great care he would break the cage of ribs and the cage of the heart. However shrivelled or dead James' heart might be, it would come to life and beat once more in his cradling hand. (Even if it was only an illusion, even if the illusion of movement only came about from your trembling hand.) And he would take James' heart and everything that was James into himself and make James his forever.

* * * * * * *

_Finis._


End file.
